The Airborne Laser (ABL) and the European ballistic missile defense (BMD) programs that once faced devastating funding cuts have rallied, with a House-Senate conference committee providing those programs most of the money that President Bush had requested.

The House-Senate panel wrote the final compromise version of the Department of Defense (DOD) appropriations bill for the current fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2008.

While some authorizing House lawmakers at one point voted to whack roughly $400 million out of the $549 million requested for the Airborne Laser program in fiscal 2008, the final appropriations bill that decides how much money each program actually receives cut only $35 million, leaving ABL with $513.759 million.

As for the plan to construct a Ground-based Midcourse missile Defense (GMD) system in Europe, some authorizing lawmakers at one point wanted to whack all $160 million for the part of the GMD system that would place missile silos for interceptors in Poland.

But the final appropriations bill adopted a Senate position that cuts only $85 million from the $310 million request, with the cut divided between the Czech and Polish units.

That’s crucial, because the administration is attempting to negotiate permission from Poland to base the interceptors there, and from the Czech Republic to base a high- capability radar there. If Congress had devastated the GMD program with deep budget cuts, the Czechs and Poles might have asked why they should bother supporting the program by hosting it in their countries.

The conference committee bill also provides full funding or extra funding for many missile or missile defense programs:

  • There is an extra $75 million for the Arrow missile defense system, a joint Israeli-U.S. program, along with the Upper Tier Program and the Short-Range Ballistic Missile Defense Program.

  • $120 million extra for the Kinetic Energy Interceptor BMD system

  • $80 million extra for test and training ranges upgrades and support and other enhancements for GMD

  • $75 million added for the Aegis sea-based BMD system, Standard Missiles, ship installations and upgrades, and the asymmetric defense initiative

  • The Patriot PAC-3 Purefleet program

  • The Trident II D-5 LE program

  • Tomahawk missile procurement

  • Javelin missile procurement

  • Small-Diameter Bomb procurement

  • The Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile low rate initial production

  • The Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD

Some programs also received extra funds, beyond amounts that Bush sought:

The bill “supports” several programs at requested amounts, according to a committee statement:

  • Global Positioning System II, or GPS II

  • The Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications satellite

  • The Wideband Global Satellite

  • The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, or NPOESS

  • Joint Air-to-Ground Missile, or JAGM, research and development

  • The Excalibur research and development program

The bill also provides more than $100 million for space situational awareness (SSA) activities such as:

  • Space Control Test Capabilities

  • RAIDRS Block 20

  • Basic SSA research activities

Programs that were cut included the Space Test Bed, which receive no funds.

Other programs receiving less than requested funding included:

  • The Transformational Satellite program

  • Global Positioning System III, or GPS III

  • The Alternative Infrared Space System, or AIRSS

The bill also moves forward on a controversial program that some lawmakers oppose, the Prompt Global Strike Initiative, which received $100 million total, consolidating currently disparate efforts scattered across DOD.

This would involve using Navy submarines to fire long-range missiles with conventional warheads, so that a U.S. combatant commander requesting a strike could be given steel on a target anywhere in the world in an hour or less.

Some lawmakers fear that this could result in some nations mistakenly believing the United States had launched a nuclear attack on them.

The appropriations bill also includes $125 million for advance procurement of an additional Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications satellite.